


Feeling Pretty Psyched

by shinealightonme



Category: Psych
Genre: Apocalypse, Community: apocalyptothon, Foursome, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-17
Updated: 2010-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-09 12:59:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/pseuds/shinealightonme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shawn knows what he wants, but he hadn't counted on the end of the world interfering with his plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feeling Pretty Psyched

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://entwashian.livejournal.com/profile)[**entwashian**](http://entwashian.livejournal.com/) for [](http://community.livejournal.com/apocalyptothon/profile)[**apocalyptothon**](http://community.livejournal.com/apocalyptothon/); quotes are from REM, Pat Benatar, Blue Oyster Cult, the Doors, and the Beatles. Originally posted [on LJ](http://shinealightonme.livejournal.com/98871.html).
> 
> [Lovely cover](http://i53.tinypic.com/nvy6w5.png) made by entwashian!

_i. dummy, serve your own needs_

Magazine, on the desk.

No, not a magazine, a scientific journal. Naturally, Gus, it can't just be Sports Illustrated?

October issue. The address label is on crooked; there's a second address label underneath it. They sent it to the wrong address, which is why Gus has just gotten it today.

The cover article – something about earthquakes. Really? We're still not over earthquakes? Get with the times, people, it's all about wildfires and hurricanes.

-

It seems the most natural thing in the world to laugh at Gus' copy of _Meteorology Monthly._

"Seriously?" Shawn scoffs, snatching the journal in question out of Gus's hands. "I can get reading _National Geographic_, because sometimes they have awesome pictures and stories about bats that eat people, and I can get reading nerdy magazines around nerdy women to try and establish your cred, but reading this stuff, in the Fortress of Coolness that is Psych, that's just sad."

"It's not sad, Shawn," Gus grabs at the journal, but Shawn was holding it high over head, and he nearly topples his chair over reaching for it. "It's informative."

-

New subscription? Must be. Last two months it was Coin Collectors, before that was Knitting Knews, and there was the origami magazine that, ironically, did not fold very well.

Not enough to have one nerdy hobby. Gotta catch 'em all. Someone get that boy a girlfriend. Or more. Yes, that should do the trick.

Gus will have better things to do with his time soon enough.

-

"It's bogus. Like California is really going to fall into the ocean because of an earthquake. They just make most of this stuff up, and the bits that are real are too boring to read." Shawn tosses the journal over his shoulder, aiming at the trashcan but missing by several feet.

"You're thinking of the Inquirer, Shawn."

-

Inquirer? Last three years worth of headlines, read in lines at grocery stores – no, no earthquakes there.

The Day After Tomorrow, maybe, but Shawn didn't see that one. Play back the theatrical trailer; no, no earthquakes there, either.

Go with the classics. Earthquake. Charlton Heston. Not that anyone watches that for the earthquakes.

-

"Ah-ah-ah! Shh," Shawn shushes him. "What's the 38th rule of our friendship, Gus?"

Gus looks momentarily confused. "Friends don't let friends play with sparklers while drunk?"

-

5 stitches, 3 pissed off neighbors, 8 weeks before Dad talked to him again using anything _like_ an indoor voice.

-

"Really?" Shawn asks. "Because that sounds like any _awesome_ idea –"

"No way, Shawn, you nearly burned your dad's house down, and _I_ don't want to go to jail for arson."

"My point is, we have a rule in this friendship about not mentioning certain publications."

"So the Inquirer didn't publish your story. Get over it, that was like ten years ago."

-

Silly little bet, or really awesome idea?

Probably better not to tell Gus about his stint as a freelance tabloid journalist.

-

"But it was an awesome story!"

"You claimed that you saved a woman from the Keebler elves."

"Those guys are so shifty looking. You can tell they're up to something."

"You know that's right," Gus concedes. "But it's a little farfetched, even for the tabloids."

"I wrote the story up for them and everything. All they had to do was print it and let me bask in the fame and glory."

"You're crazy, Shawn. And you're in my way." Gus pushes past him to retrieve his magazine.

"Dude, I thought you'd moved past that."

"I'm not an infant, Shawn, I don't forget something exists just because you've taken it away from me for two minutes."

-

Unless the distraction is really, _really_ good. Which Shawn usually is.

-

"I'd hope not," Shawn sniggers. "Because that could get really awkward at family reunions."

"This is important stuff, Shawn," Gus lectures his friend as he retrieves the journal. "Look, they have an article about fire season. And the weather is big news these days. That freak snowstorm is wreaking havoc all over the East Coast."

"See, they can't even keep their story straight. One minute it's global warming, the next it's blizzards –"

Gus just talks louder. "Not to_ mention_ that there have been more earthquakes than usual lately that have been hitting heavily populated areas. I need to keep up to date on this stuff."

-

If Gus doesn't read the news, Shawn might have to read it for himself.

Too much trouble. Too many words, pictures, noise in his head.

Acceptable compromise?

-

"What, so you can outthink the weather?" Shawn shrugs. "Fine, I'm going to play Mario Kart, but you can waste your time on this if you like. But I promise you, we are not going to fall into the ocean because of an earthquake."

"Don't even joke about that," Gus warns. "You know I have that recurring nightmare."

Shawn just throws his hands up in the air and goes to play Nintendo 64.

-

In the end, of course, Shawn is right

Shawn is _always_ right.

It isn't an earthquake that gets them.

 

_ii. it's not so pretty when it fades away_

It wasn't so unusual for Shawn to be poking around the station when they hadn't thrown him a case recently. For all his slacker tendencies, he was pretty dedicated to finding work for himself – or on one memorable case, making work for himself, though he swore he wouldn't do that again after Lassiter threatened to arrest him for treason.

SBPD hadn't hired Shawn for a case in a few weeks, and as far as Juliet knew, he hadn't had any private cases lined up recently, either. So she wasn't too surprised to see Shawn chatting up Buzz until she saw him hand over a piece of paper.

She watched Shawn's progress around the station. It gave her something to do as she waited on hold. Shawn was handing fliers to everybody, even the desk sergeant who'd only transferred in a week ago.

Juliet tapped her pencil on her desk and muttered to herself, "What are you up to this time?"

Shawn's timing was eerily good – he glanced over just as she spoke. Not that he could have heard her. Could he? Crap. Juliet looked down and grabbed some paperwork to look as busy as possible.

Shawn wasn't fooled; he was pretty clever, after all. Or maybe he just didn't care if she was busy. That would be pretty typical Shawn behavior, too.

"Good morning, Jules, oh crowning jewel of Santa Barbara's police tiara of occasionally questionable taste."

Juliet only answered with a raised eyebrow.

"Okay, that sort of trailed off at the end there." Shawn waved the matter away with one hand, while he used the other to drop his stack of fliers on Juliet's desk. "But you have to admit, the Jules and jewel thing, that was pretty good."

Juliet made a show of covering her phone's receiver. "Is there something you want, Shawn?"

"Yes. I want to extend an invitation to you."

"Busy, here." Juliet started to brush him off, but couldn't stop herself from reading his flier upside-down. "Really?"

"Don't you like it?" Shawn put one on top of her stack of paperwork, facing right side up, and there was no mistaking it: it really did say "END OF THE WORLD PARTY" in huge block letters.

"Tasteful, Shawn. Very tasteful."

Shawn rolled his eyes. "Since when has Halloween ever been about being tasteful? Have you _seen_ the Re-Animator? More importantly, you didn't tell me what you thought about the aesthetic value of the flier. I designed this myself, you know."

"I can tell," Juliet told him. "Gus has a better eye for color."

Shawn clasped at his chest, over his heart. "You wound me, Juliet! But I shall live on another day if you promise to come to the party."

"I don't know," Juliet hedged. She wasn't scheduled to work that evening, but she was going to help out with the station's trick-or-treat safety program, earlier on Halloween evening, and wasn't sure if she'd be up to a big party afterward. Not when there was going always so much work to do on November 1st.

"Promise me, Jules." Shawn suddenly sounded serious. "Come, and bring that dour-faced partner of yours. We have much to discuss."

"Like what?" Juliet asked, stumped.

"Not here." Shawn held a finger to his lips, and kept it there as he continued speaking, rather ruining the point of the gesture. "At the party."

"Fine, I'll make an appearance," Juliet promised.

-

"Just make an appearance?" Juliet pleaded.

"Absolutely not." Lassiter clapped his earmuffs over his ears and loaded his gun. "Halloween is an awful excuse for a holiday. And if, for some reason, I _wanted_ to celebrate an evening devoted to satanic rituals, casual lawlessness, and black eyeliner, I wouldn't do it around Spencer. I get enough of him at work."

Juliet sighed and put her own earmuffs on, fixing her sights on the target. The shooting range had seemed like the best time to bring up the subject, as Lassiter was always happiest when he had a gun in his hand, but now she was rethinking for purely practical reasons. It was hard to keep a conversation going when you couldn't hear your partner.

Instead, she tried to focus on her first round. She didn't succeed entirely, and her distraction showed in her results.

"You have to keep your mind in the range," Lassiter lectured her. "See that?" He pointed to his in comparison. "That's what you get when you put everything out of your mind but the gun and the target."

"Or when you spend every free, waking minute in the shooting range," Juliet retorted. "Which is another reason you should go to the party. You need to get out more, Carlton. Relax a little in a way that doesn't involve destroying something."

Lassiter looked mildly offended. "I rarely destroy things. And if Officer King tells you otherwise, she is lying, because that was not me at the aquarium."

"You know what I mean, Carlton." Juliet prepared the next target, and had an idea. "How about a little wager?"

He gave her his unintentionally patronizing grin. "Now, O'Hara, it's not very nice if I take your money like that, is it?"

"So no money then." Juliet reloaded her gun. "If I win, you come with me to Shawn's party."

Lassiter considered this with a pained look on his face. Good. "If I win, you help me fix my car's engine."

Juliet dropped her shoulders. Lassiter was terrible with cars. "God, Carlton, can't you just take that into the shop?"

"And let those bastards rob me blind? I think not."

Juliet rolled her eyes but agreed. "Fine! Let's just shoot and get this over with."

Lassiter gave her a little half-bow, condescension back on his face. "Ladies first."

-

"Ladies first," Lassiter said joylessly, holding the door open for her.

"And have you run away the second my back is turned?" Juliet laughed and shoved him lightly.

Lassiter didn't budge, both feet firmly digging into the ground outside the office of Psych. "Remind me why I'm here again?" he sighed.

"Because you're honorable enough to uphold the bets you make," Juliet patted him on the shoulder. "And because you're not as much of a hotshot as you think you are."

"Fine," Lassiter ground his teeth together and walked through the doorway like a man going to his doom. "Let's just get this over with." He had to speak louder to compensate for the noises of conversation and music – Thriller, predictably. "There's enough people here, maybe Spencer won't even notice we're – "

"Lassie!" Speak of the devil. "You made it!" Shawn bounded up to them, followed closely by Gus. "Oh, but didn't Juliet tell you? This is a costume party."

Lassiter smiled at him, humorlessly. "I'm pretending to be someone who wants to be here."

"Well, that's a terrible costume," Shawn said. "For one thing, no one would ever guess it. For another, you don't really pull it off."

"Yes, Shawn, but we can't all be," Juliet gestured vaguely at his outfit. "Bikers."

"Really, Jules?" Shawn shook his head. "Breakfast Club. You don't – never mind. I don't know why I bother with you people."

"No one has guessed yours yet, Shawn," Gus chided his friend. "I told you it was too nonspecific. Not like Juliet's Ghostbuster costume."

"Or like your Count Blacula costume?" Shawn smirked.

Gus' face turned stormy. "I'm not Count Blacula, Shawn. Just because a black man dresses up as a vampire for Halloween, that doesn't mean he's Count Blacula."

"Dude, why wouldn't you _want_ to be Blacula?"

Juliet caught Lassiter eyeing the door as Gus and Shawn bickered, so she inched closer to him and stepped on his foot. He jumped and glared at her accusingly, to which she feigned innocence and turned to look around the party.

There were a number of people she saw every day at the precinct; admittedly, she didn't usually see her colleagues when they were so relaxed and, well, _festive_ was one way of putting it. Some other people pinged her as being vaguely familiar, and she figured she must be friends of Shawn and Gus'. Maybe even some of them had been at that memorable class reunion.

Then there were some people she was shocked at identifying.

"Isn't that Mercutio Plath?" she nodded toward the B&amp;E suspect who had only been released the week before.

"Now, I know what you're thinking." Shawn held up his hands in a placating manner. "You're thinking, I know that guy, and isn't that a new haircut? It is, and you're right, it's not the direction I would have gone with my hair, but I think he pulls it off nicely."

"Oh my God," Gus turned to Shawn accusingly. "You told me his name was Larry."

Shawn tilted his head. "I believe Larry is a rather common nickname for Mercutio."

"I can't believe you invited a crook to the party," Gus continued. "He's probably casing the office now so he can come back later and rob us."

"Do you guys even have anything worth stealing here?" Juliet asked.

"The TV," Gus answered, and simultaneously:

"Doritos," Shawn said.

Lassiter, meanwhile, was shooting a deadly glare at the thief, who really did have enough problems of his own what with that haircut. He started looking more and more uncomfortable, finally making his way out of the Psych offices when Lassiter gave him the "I'm watching you" sign.

"Dude, you seriously did not just throw someone out of my party," Shawn whined. "That's total breach of Bro Code. Also, who makes that sign anymore? It's not the aught's anymore, Lassiebones."

Juliet thought she spotted at least two more of Lassiter's recent arrests, but rather than lead them down that road again, she nodded to two older women in the corner. "Who are they, your aunts?"

"No, those would be Verna and Edith," Shawn informed her. "Two of my dad's bridge buddies."

"Where is your father, Spencer?" Lassiter asked. "I haven't seen him yet."

Gus snorted. "That would be the one person in Santa Barbara that Shawn didn't invite."

"Come on, Gus, you know that's a lie. I didn't invite Mrs. McMahon."

"Fine," Gus rolled his eyes. "Shawn's dad and our seventh grade history teacher are the only two people who didn't get invited."

"You don't think they had a party of their own, do you?" Shawn asked in mock-horror. "What if they did? What if she becomes my step-mother? I've created a monster!"

"Relax," Gus said. "Your dad's probably just going to show up here at some point anyway, with some weak pretense about lecturing you on something, and then he'll take the best seat in the room and eat all the salsa."

"Oh, like that's better?" Shawn moaned. "I'm trapped, Gus. Caught between the Rock and Steve Austin."

"That's not how it goes," Gus said on reflex.

"I've heard it both ways."

"You always want things both ways, Shawn," Juliet laughed.

"That I do," Shawn replied solemnly. "Which is why I'm going to go distract Doug before he realizes that his wife is here with the guy she left him for. Excuse me."

"All right, O'Hara," Lassiter said. "I've made my appearance. Can I leave yet?"

"No," Juliet told him sternly. "You are going to have a drink, eat some chips, and talk to at least three people before you can leave." Lassiter started to open his mouth, but she cut him off. "Three people _other than_ Gus, Shawn, and myself."

Lassiter shut his mouth and walked off to the other room, distinctly sulking.

Gus was giving her a look. "Do you think I'm being too harsh on him?" she asked.

Gus scoffed. "Too harsh on Lassiter? I don't think that's possible. I'm just surprised you could even get him here."

Juliet smiled mischievously. "I have my ways."

"And that is why I am in awe of you," Gus told her. "Do you want a drink or something? We have refreshments on the back wall." He led the way over.

Juliet eyed the punchbowl carefully as she poured herself a drink and took a small sip.

"Don't worry," Gus reassured her. "I made it myself, and it's harmless."

"I'm sure it was when you made it."

"You think someone would slip something into it? With all these cops around?"

"They're the ones I'm keeping my eye on." Juliet offered Gus a taste of her drink, and bit down her laughter when his eyes went huge.

"Hold on just a minute, Juliet, I need to speak to my parents."

Juliet was still laughing when Shawn found her a minute later.

"Did I miss something?" he asked, but true to form, didn't wait for an answer. "Look, it's very important that I talk to you."

"You know you can talk to me anytime, Shawn," Juliet told him. "You don't have to soften me up with Chips Ahoy."

"I know," he said. "But you know how I love dramatic timing. Can we step out back?"

Juliet humored him, but felt her misgivings increase as she stepped through the crowded office.

"That's better." It was quieter outside, the noise of the party muffled, and a little bit chilly. "It's still not _ideal_, but it's better than the station, anyway."

Juliet felt goose bumps break out over her skin, and she didn't think it was because of the chill. "What's this about, Shawn?"

He licked his lips, and it almost would have been comforting to see how nervous it was, except that it made her more worried. "It's about the best idea you never had."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Juliet demanded. "I'm not in the mood for your riddles and games, Shawn."

"It's about us," he said. "About everything. You know – I like you, Juliet. And I know you like me."

"Shawn," Juliet sighed.

"Just let me finish," he pleaded. "It's true, okay? But we both know that it wouldn't work out."

Juliet held her breath. She accepted that nothing was going to happen between her and Shawn, but that didn't mean it didn't still hurt.

Shawn reached out and put a hesitant hand on her arm. "But that isn't because we wouldn't be good together," he continued. "We just wouldn't be _enough_."

Juliet stared at him, still uncomprehending.

"You and me, me and Gus, you and Lassiter, it doesn't matter how you divide us up." He was speaking faster and faster now. "Take any two of us, just two, and you'd still be missing out on something. The genius of it all, the magic, that's where there's all four of us."

A light switched on in Juliet's head. It sounded so absurd, there was no way it could be what he meant. Not if he were anyone else, at least. "What are you saying?" she asked, because she had to be sure.

"I'm a loving kind of guy," he told her. "I have a lot of love to share. And I want to share it with you, and with Gus, and with Lassiter."

Juliet lifted a hand and rubbed her face, trying to give herself time to get her thoughts together. It didn't help. "What am I supposed to say to that, Shawn?"

"Say you'll help me." He sounded so earnest. "I think I can get Gus onboard, but there's no way Lassiter will go through without some serious convincing from you."

There were a thousand reasons for her to say no. It was ridiculous. It was a disaster waiting to happen. It was one of Shawn's ideas, which ensured that it was not going to turn out anything like planned. It was risky to the point of insanity.

The only reason to say yes was the look on Shawn's face, like he had pinned all his hopes on the next thing she said. And for a moment, that was almost enough.

"Shawn," Juliet shook her head, and watched as Shawn's expression went carefully blank. "I can't."

"Right," he said, smiling too quickly.

"Don't be like that," she told him. "You have to realize how this sounds – "

"I do. I just thought it could be fun, you know, a bit of an adventure."

Juliet hated to do it, but she stepped away from him, out of his touch. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Shawn laughed, and it sounded awful. "Just – think about it, okay? My door's always open to Santa Barbara's finest."

He started to walk back to the party. She thought about calling after him, but she had no idea what she'd said if he came back.

She lingered outside for another minute, not wanting to return to the revelries. She was debating just sneaking around the outside of the building and leaving when she remembered that she'd come with Lassiter. Lassiter, who Shawn wanted to bring into some sort of foursome. Lassiter, who was impossible to deal with most of the time, but who was also a really great guy and pretty attractive, and okay, _maybe_ she'd thought about him before in a certain light, on occasion, but it was just idle thinking, and it wasn't like she'd ever –

Lassiter just _had_ to choose that very moment to step outside. "O'Hara?" he called to her.

"What?" Juliet snapped at him a bit. There was a remnant of guilt or fear setting her on edge, making her worry that he would, somehow, know what she'd been thinking.

He looked wary, and slightly mystified; his "O'Hara did something uncharacteristic" face. "Nothing, I was just checking to see where you'd gone. If you're ready to leave, you know, we don't have to stick – "

"Oh no you don't, Carlton" she put her hands on her hips. "You're not getting out of this so easily. Back inside!"

-

"Back inside, O'Hara," Vick called as Juliet had one foot out the door.

"Chief!" Juliet smiled. "I was just heading out to lunch, do you want – "

"I'm sorry, but there will be no lunch breaks today." Vick looked grave, but then again, when _didn't_ she? "Everyone is needed in the conference room now, and I mean _now_."

"Got it," Juliet smiled at her ruefully and walked as quickly as she could to her desk to grab a power bar, before reporting as ordered to the conference room.

It was mostly full already, so rather than fighting her way to the front where Carlton stood, Juliet sidled up to Buzz. "Hey," she greeted, and he smiled down at her. "Do you know what this is all about?"

"Can't say I do," he shrugged. He glanced at her make-do lunch a little too keenly, so Juliet broke him off a piece.

Vick came striding in, followed by the last of the station's stragglers, and –

"Oh, no," Juliet muttered as she spotted the Santa Barbara Fire Chief.

"Quiet down, everyone," Vick announced, not that many people were speaking.

"Quiet down, everyone," Lassiter hollered, not that many people were speaking.

"Thank you, Detective," Vick said grimly. "I'll keep this brief. This is Fire Chief Bob Donahue. We have a lot of work to do, and he's here to help us with that. You've probably heard about the wildfires springing up in the last few weeks."

There was a mute agreement, full of worried glances and half-nods.

"The situation, though initially under control, has gotten worse," Vick continued. "The fires have broken past the fire break and are getting closer. The mayor is issuing an order to evacuate."

"Is that really necessary?"

Oh, God. Of _course_ Shawn would show up. Juliet resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands, opting instead to square her shoulders and stare straight at Vick, hoping that Shawn would somehow disappear if she didn't pay him any attention.

That tactic worked as well as it ever did. Shawn kept talking, even slinging one arm around the fire chief's shoulders and poking him in the chest to emphasize his point. "I'm sure Bobby's fine boys here can take care of things."

"We all have faith in the fine work that the Santa Barbara Fire Department does," Vick said diplomatically. "Nevertheless, this is an important precaution. Wildfires are unpredictable."

"Yeah, but come on," Shawn laughed. It sounded forced. "We do this little dance every couple of years, and we're all still here, aren't we? Worse case scenario, we all breath a little ash while the governor sends in the troops to straighten everything out."

"I'm afraid we're on our own," Donahue said.

"What?" That would be Gus. Juliet hadn't seen him, trying as she was to ignore the whole spectacle, but she had known he couldn't be far behind Shawn. "What exactly do you mean, on our own?"

"Our aid is limited," Vick admitted. "Sacramento has sent as much help as they could, but most of their emergency services are already on the Temecula fires. Much of the country is not in a position to send help, either. Arizona just had another earthquake, and may I remind you two that this is still hurricane season?"

"Well, yeah," Gus said. "But you guys are going to get this thing under control, right?"

"We're doing our best," Donahue growled. It was not reassuring.

Vick crossed her arms. "Until such time as the situation is back under control, you two need to stay out of our way. I advise you to take your families and get out of Santa Barbara." They didn't move. "That's your cue to leave, gentlemen."

Shawn turned around, as though looking for a sign, and caught Juliet's eye.

"Just get out of here, Shawn," she said. "This isn't the time."

 

_iii. burn out the day_

Gus' emergency survival kit contained:

\- 1 map of California. ("Do you even know how to read a map?" Juliet accused, twisted around in the passenger seat of the car to glare at Shawn.

"Of course I do," Shawn snapped. "I earned my merit badges, same as any other plucky youngster."

"Yeah, in metalworking and public speaking," Gus reminded him.

"Do I have to turn this car around?" Lassiter asked, and for a moment, Gus nearly had a heart attack because – Lassiter, joking? But then he spotted Lassiter's expression in the rearview mirror, and the cop looked completely serious.

"It's not my fault," Shawn objected. "It's all these tiny little roads. I can barely read the names on them, they're so small. If we were on the freeways..."

Lassiter rolled his eyes. "Guster, take the map and figure out where the hell we are.")

\- Food, canned and preserved. (They ran out of food quickly. Gus had packed enough for a few days, enough to last him through a short escape or a moderate wait for rescue. He'd thought if it was the kind of situation where he needed more than that, he'd be to busy running from the zombies to care.

Now they were all learning that, no matter what their worries and fears and hopes, they always had time to be concerned about food. Since most everywhere they'd passed through was deserted, they'd given up on nobility and started lifting food from stores, when they could find it. At least, Shawn and Gus did, and acted for all the world like they'd happened to find it somewhere on the side of the road. Juliet and Lassiter did them the courtesy of pretending to buy into it, and didn't ask any questions.)

\- Water. (There was never enough water.)

\- Waterproof matches, 1 box. (The irony was killing him.)

\- Pocket knife. (Lassiter's was bigger, as was Juliet's. Shawn teased Gus about this until Gus pointed out that he didn't have one at all, and so what did that mean about him? Lassiter had given him a nod of approval, like he'd passed some kind of bizarre test. He couldn't decide why the thought made him feel so proud.)

\- First aid kit. (The cut on Juliet's hand was bleeding; not very fast, but it didn't have to, not when it was so large. She raised her hand to her mouth.

"Don't," Gus warned, snatching her hand back. She looked guilty. "You know how much bacteria you have in your mouth?"

She shot him a wounded look. "I didn't think I was that bad."

"Gus doesn't mean anything personal by it," Shawn said. "And don't get him started, I've sat through this lecture before. Short version is, none of us mere humans can quite measure up to the dental health of dogs." Shawn paused to consider. "Well, maybe Lassie."

"Shawn," Gus rolled his eyes. "Shut up and get the first aid kit."

"Wow," Juliet said a moment later. "When you said first aid kit, I thought, you know." She gestured something smaller than a breadbox.

"You know Gus," Shawn told her as he fished out the gauze. "Prepared for everything. And this is what he _does_ for a living." Shawn raised an eyebrow. "Vaseline?" His eyebrows went haywire. "I guess you really are prepared for _anything_."

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Shawn," Gus said, pressing a wad of gauze to Juliet's cut. Juliet was watching closely, in a way that left Gus impressed. He never could bring himself to look at any of physical injury he got.

"I always forget what you do," she said abruptly.

"His business cards don't actually say 'Shawn's sidekick'," Shawn told her. "Not his personal ones anyway, and for some reason he doesn't use the ones I printed for him."

"I know that," Juliet said, then made a face. "Well, not the part about the cards you – why would you? – oh, never mind. I mean, I forget you're a pharmaceutical rep. I guess in my mind, you do this." She waved her free hand.

"Explore endless wastelands?" Gus asked, aiming for a joking tone of voice. "That's a pretty new industry. Unless you mean watching Steven Seagal movies."

"No, I meant – you know. Putting on gauze, not selling it. You're good at it."

There was one thing he hadn't thought to pack in the kit, though, and he really wasn't looking forward to the day that Juliet came asking for it. She was probably looking forward to it even less.)

\- 1 tent, large. (It wasn't technically part of the survival kit, but Gus had grabbed it on the way out of Santa Barbara, on impulse, and was incredibly grateful for it.

It was easily big enough for the four of them, especially since they left most of their stuff locked in the car. All the same, Gus usually woke up to find someone in his personal space. He didn't mind, though he never mentioned it, either.)

\- Tarps, two. (Gus had become intimately familiar with the burned out landscape; it never really changed, however far they drove. There were always trees that were big enough to survive despite the scorch marks, and patches of ground that were mysteriously skipped over, and far too much ash.

It made for pretty awful campsites, but when the alternative was sleeping in the car – the same car they spent much of their days cooped up in, driving – they did what they had to do. There was also no way to keep clean, not anymore – ash got everywhere. They used one tarp under the tent to keep it clean, and kept the other one to wrap around the first one. It helped, some, but the ash got into their clothes and their hair and their shoes and sometimes Gus wondered why they bothered at all.)

\- Radio. (Gus turned the dials and got precisely the same results he'd gotten the last five times: nothing. It was disappointing, to say the least, especially after all the trouble he'd put into hiding his emergency survival kit so that Shawn couldn't pillage it for the batteries.

"For crying out loud, Guster, do you have to keep fiddling with that damn thing?" Lassiter snapped.

"Just let it go, Carlton," Juliet sighed. She sounded as tired of this argument as Gus was. "If he can get anything, you'll want to hear it."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Shawn said. "What if it's some crazy talk show host claiming that God is sending hellfire down on California?"

Lassiter snorted. "I'd listen to anything that wasn't you people."

Gus felt the same way as Lassiter did. Hence the radio.)

\- Flashlights, two. (They switched their sleep schedules, adapting to the light. It was easier; they didn't have to worry as much about wasting batteries, either the AA's or the 12 volt. It was healthier for them to match daily routines to their natural circadian rhythms, anyway.

Shawn grumbled, of course. "It just isn't right. Waking up at dawn, going to sleep before midnight, it's like being seven years old again."

Juliet looked perplexed. "What kind of seven year old wakes up at dawn?"

"One who has to start training in the Henry Spencer boot camp," Gus told her. She just looked more baffled.

"I don't see why you're complaining," Lassiter said. "We get to start the day with an absolutely breathtaking sunrise, and you all just talk over it." Under the weight of their gaze, he suddenly became self-conscious. "What? Look, the colors, they're very – there's so much – oh, forget it.")

\- Whistle. ("What do you think that is, a C?" Shawn blew on the whistle again, drawing out the note.

Lassiter snatched it out of his mouth. "Hey!" Shawn objected.

"You're giving me a headache."

"I'm trying to answer an important question, here." Shawn snatched for the whistle, but Lassiter lifted it over his head.

"Really, you're going to play keep away?" Shawn threw his hands up in disgust. "Fine. But you should know that I am a _champion_ at keep away." He jumped up, grabbing at Lassiter, but Lassiter just threw the whistle to Juliet.

"Awesome! Jules, give it here."

"How about no." Juliet pocketed the watch.

"You're letting me down, Jules!" Shawn looked around for support. "Gus, tell her that she's letting down the team."

"It's an F sharp, Shawn, and it's annoying."

"Teaming up on me." Shawn shook his head. "You guys are no fun."

"If you want something to listen to so badly, why don't you sing something?" Juliet suggested.

The guys exchanged glances. "We could do that." Shawn shrugged.

Lassiter scowled. "No Kumbaya. This is not a camping trip."

"That's not exactly what I had in mind," Shawn started.

"No A-ha, either," Juliet decreed.

"You guys are _no_ fun at _all_," Shawn repeated.)

\- Change of clothes. (At least one cloud had a silver lining: a dirty body meant Gus didn't mind dirty clothes quite as much as he thought he would.

They all smelled horrendous. There was no helping it; they had plenty of soap packed away, but they didn't always have the water. Even passing through towns, they couldn't usually find taps that worked.

They had to get more open-minded about bathing. They had to get more open-minded about a lot of things, like sleeping in their underwear. Necessity was the mother of redefining social conventions, apparently.

And Gus, at least, had to get more open-minded about sharing clothes. First Shawn begged his extra shoes off him, because Shawn's shoes were ill-suited to walking and running and climbing and – well, anything besides being flaunted on top of coffee tables, really. His extra shirt had gone to Juliet after her blouse tore, though it didn't really fit her. Lassiter got his extra pants, to replace the ones with all the blood stains.

Gus had always been a caring guy, but he wasn't big on sharing things that he really considered to be _his_. Clothes, that pressed right up against his skin, that gave him his own style, that took on his smell – yeah, those were personal, and he wasn't a fan of sharing. It was weird to see the others walking around in _his_ clothes, until one morning he woke up and it wasn't weird any more.)

\- Disposable razors, 2 packs. (They didn't even bother.)

\- Photo album, small. (When the call had finally come to leave Santa Barbara, when even the most die-hard were rethinking their resistance to evacuating, Gus was ready to go. He'd been ready to go days before, when his family had left, but he'd stayed. Instead of being holed up safe at Uncle Isaac's place – and Uncle Isaac's place _was_ safe, he refused to think otherwise – he was here with Shawn, and Juliet, and Lassiter.

Which was fine. That was what he'd chosen, what he'd stayed in Santa Barbara _for_. But sometimes he pulled the album out when he thought they weren't looking. He was startled to find, one day, a crinkled picture of Juliet's brother, younger but just as intimidating, standing next to two older people he assumed were her parents; and the day after that, a wallet snapshot of Lassiter's ex-wife.)

Lassiter's emergency survival kit contained:

\- Guns. ("Geez, Lassiter, think you have enough guns?" Gus yelped. He felt it was an appropriate response to being confronted with a _trunk load of guns_.

"A man can only hope," Lassiter answered, in that eerie, hyper-serious way he had. "Have you ever fired a weapon before, Guster?"

"I am proud to say I have not." He was pretty sure that was the wrong answer, but he was still freaked out by the _trunk load of GUNS_.

"Then today's your lucky day."

There was so much that was wrong with that, but then, what ever was right in Gus' world? He bit down a protest, put himself in his Shawn-is-being-childish defense mode, and tried not to flail as Lassiter shoved a gun into his hands. He could do this.)

\- Ammunition. ("Target practice? _Really?_" Juliet sounded exasperated. "Do you think that's necessary? Do you even think that's a good idea? What if you run out of ammo just before the one time you _actually_ need to shoot something?"

Gus pointed wordlessly to the _trunk load of guns._

"...Oh.")

Juliet's emergency survival kit contained:

\- Tool kit. (The car's engine started making suspicious noises after about a week. Gus wasn't terribly surprised, given the kind of roads – and lack of roads – that they'd been driving through. Lassiter acted as through swearing at the steering wheel were an acceptable substitute for actual car repair, so Gus _also_ wasn't surprised when the car just stopped running one day. Left to him, Shawn, and Lassiter, that could have been the end of it, but Juliet took a wrench and a crowbar and did something mysterious that they couldn't see with the hood open, blocking the windshield, and in no time at all got the car running again.

"Juliet, you're my hero," Gus told her as she returned to her seat.

"We love you, Jules."

"Good work, O'Hara."

"Just drive," Juliet said wearily.)

\- Chocolate bars, 3. (Those were gone in no time at all, and if Gus worried about what that said for their skills at rationing or their chances for survival, he wrote if off that they would have just melted and gotten gross, anyway, and it was better to eat them before they could go to waste. Juliet must have agree with him, since she was the one who broke the bars up into pieces they could share.)

\- Moist towelettes, 1 package. ("Shawn, you got a little something right," Gus pointed at his right cheek. "Right about here."

"Funny, Gus," Shawn said sourly. "Very funny. Are any of you planning to help me out, or do you just want to laugh?"

"Who's laughing?" Lassiter smirked. "But you're not getting in my car until you've wiped your feet."

"Juliet, why don't you take a shot at me, too?" Shawn demanded. "Kick me while I'm down?"

"I would never," Juliet said. "You boys are so mean to each other. Why can't any of you help him out?" She reached into her pocket, pulled out a single towelette, and smiled brightly as she handed them over to Shawn.

He stared at her wordlessly as mud dripped from his hair, his arms, his legs, even his nose.

"What?" she asked. "It's better than nothing, isn't it?")

\- Fire extinguisher. (They stood in silence for several moments, just watching as smoke wafted up into the air.

Shawn was the one who broke the silence, of course. "I think I speak for us all when I say, we're screwed."

"You can fix that, right?" Lassiter turned to Juliet. He sounded sort of pathetic, but Gus couldn't blame him when he felt the exact same way.

"Carlton, your engine _caught fire_," Juliet explained slowly. "This is the point where you get a new car."

They all glanced at the empty landscape around them surreptitiously, as though a car might appear out of nowhere if it thought they weren't paying attention.

Shawn coughed. "Guess we'll just have to stop at the next dealership we see."

"Never thought I'd be so thankful for the end of the world," Gus muttered. "I _hate_ car salesmen.")

\- Sleeping blanket. ("Gus?" Juliet whispered. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah," Gus answered, and waited for Shawn to say something. After a lifetime of sleepovers, Gus knew the difference between Shawn's fake sleep noises and Shawn's actual sleep noises. "Shawn?" he prompted, and prodded his friend with his toe.

"Well, I'm awake now," Shawn whispered back.

Juliet was silent for a minute, and Gus wondered if he should have let sleeping dogs lie.

"Do you guys think we're okay here?" she asked finally.

"Don't worry about it," Shawn assured her. "We haven't seen fire in days. We'll be fine."

Gus thought of letting it go there, but the chance was too tempting: to speak into the darkness, like no one was listening, but still know he was heard. "Maybe. But I'm scared."

Juliet reached out of the darkness to squeeze his hand.)

\- Walkie-talkies, 2. ("Where the hell are you, Carlton?" Juliet muttered for at least the tenth time.

Shawn had used up all his quips the first nine times. "It's almost sunset," he pointed out. "I think it's time we went looking for him."

"No, I think it's time _I_ went looking for him," Juliet corrected. "You two stay here and keep an eye on the camp."

"You can't go alone," Gus protested.

"I'm not going to be alone, I'm going to find Carlton and kick his ass." Juliet grabbed a walkie-talkie and checked that her side-arm was loaded. "Now stay _here_ so I don't have to track you down, too."

She was gone before Gus could argue again. He started to follow her, but Shawn stopped him. "She has a point. You'll just get lost, and that'd be even more annoying."

"I would not get lost," Gus claimed. "Besides, we haven't seen anyone else in ages. What are we supposed to be protecting the camp from?"

"Bigfoot, obviously."

Time passed slowly until the walkie-talkie crackled. "Gus! Gus, get the first aid kit. Something's happened to Carlton.")

\- Flares, half a dozen. (Every so often, based on some unspecified formula of how many days had passed and how much they were getting on each other's nerves and how restless they were feeling and how much they missed the world, they would fire off one of the flares and hope it would lead someone else to them. It never did.)

Shawn's emergency survival kit contained:

\- Lassiter.

\- Juliet.

\- Gus.

 

_iv. our love become a funeral pyre_

Despite Spencer's claims to the contrary, Lassiter was a good detective.

He just needed to get his facts together first.

-

Lassiter was halfway to the shed when Spencer caught up to him.

"Whoa, whoa, where are you going, Speedy Gonzales?" Spencer catches his arm, gripping lightly like Lassiter was going to snap in half.

Lassiter gritted his teeth. He missed the days of brawling with Spencer. "Nowhere."

"You know, the advantage of nowhere is that you can sit down and still get there." Spencer tried to lead him back to the house.

Lassiter shook him off. "I'm just stretching my legs."

"You heard Doctor Guster," Spencer said, sternly. "No pushing it. If your leg falls off, he's not going to put it back on for you."

"For God's sake, Spencer, I can't just sit around and do nothing. I'm going insane."

"I'll admit, there are few times I have wanted a functioning television quite as much as I have now. Well, obviously for the Miami Vice final, which I _would_ have seen if my dad were a reasonable – "

Lassiter stepped out of Spencer's grasp.

"Hey!"

"Touch me again, Spencer, and you lose a finger."

Spencer sighed. "Can we reach some kind of compromise? Those are two pretty extreme choices."

Lassiter glared at him, and Spencer didn't even falter. Damn him, he never did. "I'm walking to the shed."

"All right." Spencer shrugged, but didn't go anywhere.

"Something I can help you with?" Lassiter asked, carefully negotiating another step.

Spencer took another step as well. "No, I'm good, I'm just walking to the shed."

Lassiter glared at him. "I don't need your help."

"Who said anything about helping _you_? I'm just going for a walk."

It took Lassiter twice as long to walk back to the house as it had taken to walk to the shed. If he had to lean on Spencer's shoulder to make it the last few yards, neither of them said anything about it.

-

Fact: Spencer was keeping a very close eye on all of them. Much closer than they were keeping on him.

-

"What's _wrong_ with the house?" O'Hara demanded, this time with more exasperation than anything else.

"It's creepy," Guster told her, packing his bag with an air of finality.

There was a creaking sound from the hallway, and Guster nodded as if this proved his point.

Lassiter was the only one close enough to hear Spencer's muffled _drat._

"It's a ghost town, Gus," O'Hara reasoned. "_All_ of the houses are creepy. Switching to a new house isn't going to magically get us some neighbors."

"No, but two houses down is further from the road. It'll be less _obvious_ that we don't have neighbors."

"Let it go, Guster," Lassiter growled. "This is good enough."

Lassiter couldn't remember the original criteria they had used for picking this house. Most of the time between his accident and hobbling into the abandoned but miraculously untouched town was a blur of pain and exhaustion.

"It's fuchsia," Guster continued.

"First of all, it's lavender," O'Hara corrected. "And it's a lovely color, I don't know what your problem is."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure it's fuchsia." They both looked at Lassiter oddly, even after he added, "But it is hideous."

"Fine." O'Hara threw her hands in the air. "You two want to break into _another_ poor, innocent person's house and squat there, do it. I'm going to go clean out the gutters on _this_ house, because that is actually productive."

-

Fact: Spencer _pretended_ he wasn't keeping an eye on them.

-

"Ta-da," Spencer said with a flourish, presenting Lassiter with a small block of wood.

"I don't need a paperweight, thanks all the same."

"Lassie!" Spencer shot Lassiter his pathetic look. "This is my gift, to you."

"A paperweight."

"No, see – you still have that pocket knife, yeah?"

Lassiter pulled it out and flicked it open, inches away from Spencer's face.

"I'm happy to see you're as pointlessly hostile as ever. And _you_ should be happy to know that I found a brilliant solution to your entertainment problem."

"What entertainment problem?"

"For one thing, you're boring. But that isn't actually what I have the solution to. I'm afraid that's incurable. But secondly, you're _bored_, and I can fix that."

"By provoking me into attacking you? Target practice would be nice, but it's not really a long-term solution, is it?"

"No, think less scary, more artistic."

Lassiter thought. "I throw knifes at the block of wood?"

"Geez, Lassiter, did you never go to summer camp? Don't answer that. No, it's the pastime of boring old coots everywhere – whittling."

It wasn't exactly a struggle not to look impressed. "Whittling."

"Yeah!" Spencer grabbed the knife away from him and carved away at the wood. "It gives you something to do when you're alone, which I know you love to be, and when you're sitting around not walking anywhere, which you really ought to do more often."

Lassiter glared at him and stole the knife back. "I don't need you to tell me what to do."

Spencer rolled his eyes. "I get it, I'm not the boss of you. Sorry for trying to help."

"What does it matter to you, anyway?"

Spencer shrugged. "I know you like to keep busy, and you like to play with knives. It just seemed like a really brilliant solution."

"What do you know about solutions? You're too damn optimistic."

"What's wrong with being optimistic?"

Lassiter flicked the pocket knife open and shut a few more times as he spoke. "It dulls your edge."

"I'm as sharp as ever."

"Are you?" Lassiter nearly asked him about his supposed psychic powers, about why he hadn't "seen" any of this coming, about why he didn't "know" what had happened to their families or Vick or McNab, why he couldn't tell them what was waiting for them if they ever reached Santa Barbara.

There was a funny look in Spencer's eye. Lassiter had seen it countless times before, during interrogations, right before the suspect confessed: the look like if he pushed a little bit further, if he just asked, Spencer would tell him the truth.

Lassiter didn't ask.

"I'm not an old coot," he said, picking up the block of wood to inspect it. What the hell was he supposed to do with it, anyway?

"Sure you are," Spencer said cheerfully. "You'll be yelling at kids to get off your lawn in a minute. If we had kids. Or a lawn."

-

Fact: Spencer was planning something, and if it were relevant to the goals they all shared – surviving, getting home – he would tell them about it.

-

O'Hara started joining Lassiter out on the porch after lunch. She'd found knitting needles somewhere, and piles of yarn. "I'm not very good," she explained to him apologetically. "I can really just do scarves and things."

She made some pink and green socks and presented them, shyly, to him. He didn't know what to say, so he tried, "Thanks." She blushed and smiled – now if only he'd thought to do that when he was _married_ and couldn't think of anything to say.

The socks were sort of lumpy and really awful colors, but they were cleaner than his current socks, and warmer, too.

Spencer, bizarrely, proved to be really good at knitting, and taught her how to do more complicated things. The two generally whispered and giggled a lot during these lessons, and O'Hara occasionally shot Lassiter looks to check that he was out of earshot.

-

Fact: O'Hara was in collusion with Spencer.

-

Guster held out for a few more days before he joined them. O'Hara tried teaching him to crochet with his fingers, since there were no more needles, but he was all thumbs. He used his own sad pocketknife and tried his hand at whittling. He wasn't very good, but then again, neither was Lassiter.

Shawn usually wandered off during this part of the day, occasionally inventing some flimsy excuse but usually not bothering with even that much. Guster flipped out and insisted he take a walkie-talkie with him whenever he was five feet away from the house. He would, and then would call them up randomly just to "check if you're getting along without me."

Lassiter was not fooled.

-

Fact: Spencer was testing them.

-

Lassiter was in the backyard making dinner when he'd heard the noise.

"Spencer." He yelled through the window into the house. "Do you hear something?"

"No. Are you trying to get out of kitchen duty?"

Lassiter made a face at him. He was usually on kitchen duty, since Guster objected to hunting, and he wasn't much use at gathering food. He wasn't much use at cooking, either, especially not when it involved open fires, but he had to do _something._

"Probably just imagining things," Lassiter muttered to himself. It wasn't like him to imagine things, but these weren't exactly normal circumstances. Maybe he was finally going crazy.

Except, he heard it again. It sounded like a car horn.

It was possible Guster or O'Hara had found a working car somewhere, but they'd searched the town when they'd first arrived and come up empty handed.

So if there was a car...

Lassiter dashed around the side of the house as fast as he could, yelling once more for Spencer.

By the time he made it out front, the car had pulled over and Spencer was standing outside; not looking happy, not looking relieved, just looking completely taken aback.

-

Fact: Spencer had mixed emotions about meeting other survivors.

-

"We can't tell you how happy we are to see you guys," Guster said. "You're the first people we've seen since we left Santa Barbara."

"Santa Barbara, huh?" The other group's leader, Riley, asked, stretching out her legs. "You haven't come so far then, have you?"

"Ugh, believe me, we've come far enough," O'Hara insisted. "We traveled north-east for a while – trying to avoid the fires, you know."

They all nodded in agreement.

"We turned around when they seemed to be dying out – we wanted to get back to Santa Barbara and see who else returned. Unfortunately, we had some car trouble." O'Hara rapped Lassiter lightly on his good knee. "Someone didn't take his vehicle in for regular maintenance."

"Hey!" he protested, oddly bothered that she should call him into question in front of these strangers. "I was going to take her in to the shop. Seriously, I had an appointment."

"Sure you did." Juliet smiled at him and patted his knee, somehow without seeming condescending. Lassiter figured that was more than he really deserved.

"There's only four of you," Riley confirmed. "Got a lot of gear?"

"No, we had to dump most of that stuff after our car exploded." Spencer would have to take the dramatic route, though he sounded oddly unenthused about it. "Gus here cried when we left behind his tent."

"I did not cry, Shawn, and that was an expensive tent."

Riley looked at them for a long moment, sizing them up. "We have a couple other vehicles we're traveling with," she said finally. "We don't have a lot of space, but Santa Barbara's not far."

"Are you offering us a ride?" Lassiter asked, knowing full well that he sounded suspicious rather than thankful, but not being able to filter that out of his voice.

"I am."

The four stared at each other for a moment before Juliet launched herself at Riley and hugged her.

"I could _kiss_ you right now. All of you," Guster enthused.

Spencer held up a hand. "Whoa, now, let's not make the nice people nervous. I think what we mean to say is, we accept, thank you."

-

Fact: Spencer was not as good of a liar as he thought he was.

-

It was late when the rest of Riley's party showed up, so they decided to stay one night longer and leave in the morning.

Lassiter headed inside, a weird feeling of regret passing over him. "Didn't think I'd ever say this, but I'm going to miss this ugly house."

"You know, Lassie," Spencer said, traipsing in after him. "Walls and paint don't make a house. People do."

"No, they don't, Shawn," Guster frowned. "Walls make a house, along with foundation and a roof. I think what you mean is, they don't make a home."

"That's like the same thing."

O'Hara frowned at him. "No, a house made out of people would be really, really disgusting."

"Ugh! Trust you guys to kill a moment."

"We were having a moment?" Lassiter deadpanned.

"I don't know why I try with you people, sometimes."

"Sure you do," Juliet said, wrapping an arm around Shawn's waist. "It's because you love us."

Gus' right eyebrow shot straight up. His left eyebrow followed shortly after, when he turned to Lassiter and found him smirking.

"Come on, Lassie," Shawn said in a sing-song voice. "Don't hold out on me."

Lassiter crossed his arms. "You realize this is a monumentally bad idea."

"Trust me, Lassie, I have thought this out _thoroughly."_

"You haven't thought it out at all."

"Who needs thinking?" Shawn waved. "The answer is so obvious."

"No, it is not obvious," Gus cut in. "Because you can't be talking about what I think you're talking about."

"I'm pretty sure we are," Juliet told him.

"Then you've both snapped. Or I've snapped. Oh God, I knew those passing travelers were too good to be true."

"Gus, don't be a wrung-out Shamwow," Shawn told him. "Just get over here and join in the love. When have I _ever_ asked anything of you?"

"When? Try every day of your life."

"Surely not every day. I mean, there were all those ones at the beginning when I couldn't even talk."

"It's no use," Lassiter told Gus. "You're putting up a brave effort, but he's just going to get to you in the end."

"You're saying you're going along with this?" Gus asked.

Lassiter shrugged. "Surrender now, and try to maintain some dignity."

"Hey!" Juliet said. "I don't like your tone."

"I think it's too late for that," Gus sighed.

Lassiter grinned. "True."

"Who needs dignity?" Shawn asked. "It's more fun this way, trust me."

 

_v. and in the end the love you take_

Six new people in town. Six!

How will anyone recover from all the excitement.

The California Tourist Board must be so proud.

-

Shawn easily has the most exciting job in Santa Barbara. He thought that had been true when he'd had Psych, but this is much better. Now, when he pokes around in everyone's business, it's respectable. Even Carlton approves.

-

"Hello, friends! Welcome to Santa Barbara." Shawn extends a warm handshake to the newcomers.

Varied responses – exhaustion, joy, skepticism, relief. It's too early to really get a read on any of them. Better to wait until they've had 24 hours to sleep and eat.

"My name is Shawn Spencer, I'm here to help you get settled. You'll be staying in Town Hall until we can get you fixed up with a place of your own."

-

Town Hall is Juliet's territory. She has the patience for assigning rooms, dealing with disputes, organizing the layout of the reconstructed town.

She's very, very good at running their little settlement. The only downside to having her in charge is that she won't kiss Shawn when she's working.

Shawn restrains himself to messing with her hair, which is probably why she cut it so short.

She's like Vick 2.0 now, even looks the part

– bad thought, don't go there, for more reasons than just that it hurts to wonder where Vick is now.

-

One of the newcomers has a bad cough? Not to fear, there's a solution to that.

Shawn takes them by the hospital, which is staffed by one veterinarian, three med students, and Gus.

Gus won't kiss Shawn when he's working, either.

It's a good thing Shawn's work is so much fun, or he would just waste away.

-

"Say, 'ah'," Gus instructs, and the woman obeys: "Ah."

"Mm-hm," Gus says, peering in closely. "All right, it looks like you've got an infection."

She looks worried, but in no time at all Gus has got her laughing and carefree again, and not just because he can give her medicine and a diagnosis.

"Dude," Shawn whispers to him as the patient's leaving. "Your game is _so much better_ now that you don't need it."

Gus puts his hands on his hips. Time for a judicious escape.

-

Does the Santa Barbara settlement sound to good to be true? Fine, there's a catch. But it's not that bad.

Someone wants somewhere to live, they build it. Someone wants something to eat, they grow it, cook it, catch it, smoke it, whatever. They'll get help, but they have to help others, too.

It's not so unreasonable, but every once in a while, someone decides to just sit around and wait for the government to roll in and solve all their problems. That's the part of the job that Shawn really hates: dealing with those guys.

Even that's not too bad; he just sends them to Carlton. That usually straightens them out in no time.

-

"Whoa, stop right there," Carlton yells to the work crew as Shawn leads the newcomers past. "That whole side is going to come down if you handle it like that."

"And here you can see construction going on for a new house." Shawn gestures to the building frame. "I told Carlton once that he should try whittling in his spare time, and instead he started building houses. I think he's overcompensating for something, frankly."

"Why must you always undermine me?" Carlton asks.

"Because everyone else _over_mines you, silly. I'm just trying to keep you evenly mine." Shawn winks outrageously at Carlton, because there's nothing Carlton can do to protest the innuendo without admitting that's what it was.

"Read a dictionary sometime, Shawn," is all he says.

-

The refugees they take in have similar stories to Shawn's – they don't know what's going on at a national level, a global level, why no one's come for them yet. For the most part, they realize that no one is coming for them, at least not soon enough.

Riley and her friends promised to pass through again some time, check up on the settlers and bring any news. Until then, Shawn sees no point in speculating about what the wider world holds.

He's got enough on his hands right now, really.


End file.
